Current location:	Rm. 215 Edmon Low Library, Oklahoma State University
Current mood:	chipper
Current music:	El Topo - Shades of Joy remix

My Top Favourite Films - Newly Revised
I've struggled over the past 12 years trying to make out what to do with those films on my Top List that are so pervasive in our popular culture that they are rendered moot any time they show up on someone's favourites list. Sure Citizen Kane, Casablanca, and the Godfather II are just about the greatest traditional films you could ever hope to see, but does it mean anything at all in telling other people what that says about you as a person? It's like putting "The Bible" on a favourite books list: As a masterwork of civilization it's kind of an expected acknowledgment that it's there, even if it's not.

So even though Jaws, Star Wars, Apocalypse Now, A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, et cetera really shake up my world, don't they have that same effect on just about everyone? Even if someone's visceral reaction to it is inert, if they took the time to learn a little bit of the context on why those are great films they couln't deny their importance. It'd be like arguing that Beethoven's 9th Symphony is a terrible little muck-raking ditty.

With this new insight, I've ventured to make a new Top Films list for myself, leaving off all the standards, and instead focusing on stuff that really thrills me through and through, both viscerally as well as intellectually, with the criteria being that the list addresses stuff that moves me in those areas just as much as the really recognized classics everyone's already seen (or should have already seen), as well as the fun movies (like the Rockys, the Universal Monster films, the Terminators, the Rambos, the Star Wars, the Halloweens), but are titles which you probably haven't ever heard about. Despite some of the more exploitative titles, only about a quarter of these are actually horror-related.

So here they are, in no particular order (As you can see, 1971 was a very VERY good year!):



1. The Holy Mountain (1973)
2. El Topo (1971)
3. Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971)
4. The Strange Vice of Ms. Wardh (1971)
5. The Fall (2006)
6. The Sister of Ursula (1978)
7. Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural (1973)
8. Spider Baby: Or, the Maddest Tale Ever Told (1968)
9. Werewolves on Wheels (1971)
10. Andy Warhol's Blood for Dracula (1973)
11. She Killed in Ecstasy (1971)
12. Die Insel der tausend Freuden (1978)
13. Lisa and the Devil (1973)
14. Repulsion (1965)
15. Jules et Jim (1962)
16. Incubus (1965)
17. Nashville (1975)
18. The Phantom of the Paradise (1974)
19. Red Desert (1964)
20. Young Einstein (1988)
21. Der Fluch der schwarzen Schwestern - UNRATED (1973)
22. The Indelicate Balance (1969)
23. Cannibal! The Musical (1996)
24. Popeye (1980)
25. Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
26. My Winnipeg (2007)
27. The Saddest Music in the World (2003)
28. Dracula: Pages From a Virgin's Diary (2002)
29. Cowards Bend the Knee (2003)
30. Zardoz (1974)
31. Primer (2004)
32. A Chronicle of Corpses (2002)
33. The Devils (1971)
34. The Wicker Man (1973)
35. Tommy (1975)
36. Daughters of Darkness (1971)
37. Vierges et vampires (1971)
38. Forbidden Zone (1982)
39. Salem's Lot (1979)
40. The Devil's Rejects (2005)
41. Fantastic Planet (1973)
42. Incoming Freshmen (1979)
43. The Witches’ Mountain (1972)
44. Delicatessan (1991)
45. Ten Thousand Maniacs (1964)
46. Head (1968)
47. Natural Born Killers (1994)
48. Irreversible (2002)
49. Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)
50. Immortal Beloved (1995)
51. Martin (1978)
52. Ganja & Hess (1973)
53. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
54. Nosferatu: Der Phantom Der Nacht (1979)
55. UHF (1989)
56. La Dolce Vita (1960)
57. City of the Lost Children (1995)
58. Suspiria (1977)
59. The Beastmaster (1982)
60. The Time Machine (1960)
61. The Fountain (2006)
62. Clash of the Titans (1981)


I'm sure I'm missing a few, but those are the core lesser-known ones. Who knew it would take me 27 years to discover the giallo genre, or to find some core southern gothics? And to think that just within the past four years I've discovered a few of the most influential films ever for me: El Topo, The Holy Mountain, The Strange Vice of Ms. Wardh, Suspiria, Ganja & Hess, the Fall!